Katsujinken - The life-giving sword

I left the last post giving the impression the perfect swordsman more resembles a robotic Terminator; devoid of compassion and only intent on destruction. In Kata this concept works because it requires me to adopt a specific mindset: that of trying not to make any unforced mistakes, allowing any suki (openings - apart from those I choose, as ‘baits’, that is) or allowing my attention to drift off (like how bad his keikogi stinks).  But it's time to move on: develop an idea I’ve been toying with by, counter-intuitively, physically removing the killer from in front of me.

One of the beautiful aspects of practicing Seitei Iaido is all the sets/forms are performed alone.  OK, we might be taking up space in a Dojo with a multitude of others but each of us are essentially alone with imaginary opponents.  It’s one of the challenges in performing solo kata: that of constructing our convincing kassou teki (invisible opponents).  Not only do we have to turn and look to where the opponents are but we also have to imagine what they are doing, how far away they are, in which direction they are travelling, how fast they are doing it and what their sword is trying to do to us, etc.  It’s actually quite hard to construct for normal people as, generally speaking, we tend not to see people who don’t exist.  People who do claim to see imaginary bodies end up being prescribed drugs for their condition.  But it’s a very, very useful talent to acquire in the Dojo.  It’s a bigger talent if you are able to convince a high-level grading panel these bodies exist.

Nukitsuke - a horizontal cut in Mae

Having pared the combat back to a single person we have to bit by bit reconstruct the kassou teki.  True, each kata has a riai or ‘story’ and thus we already know how many enemies, what they are doing, the order in which they come and so on.  We learn this fairly early on in our development.  For example, we learn in the very first kata, Mae, our single opponent is sitting right in front of us, makes as if to draw his katana and we beat him to it, slicing horizontally between his temples and following up with an overhead kirioroshi -  a powerful killing cut.  The kata then progresses though other aspects before the exponent calmly walks backwards, away from the carnage.  Even up until 2^nd Dan, blindly following this story will work.  But for 3^rd Dan and above?

What I’m working towards now, for my Sandan (3^rd Dan) is not just the fast/slow, hard/soft aspects of Mae (I’m keeping to Mae to develop an idea), but what goes on in the gaps.  I sort of knew about 'gaps' beforehand but, since last weekend, they’ve become super-important to me.  During Saturday’s Jodo class, Sensei Paul Maloney related the story of a virtuoso musician who, when asked how he could play the notes with so much beauty replied “Notes?  I don’t really play the notes.  I play the gaps between the notes”. 

For Martial Arts, the Gaps -  the sometimes infinitesimal amounts of time in which nothing appears to be going on -  are opportunities for kime (decision making).  In the merest fraction of a second one has to ask oneself a series of questions along the lines of:   “Does a threat exist?” “What are they doing?”  “How and when can I counter?” and so on.  At any point the threat can disappear – give up and beg forgiveness (say) at which juncture it becomes senseless to symbolically take their life.  Oda Sensei, Australia’s Technical Advisor for Seitei Iaido, has always said kime should be present within such-and-such micropause but I’ve never before fully appreciated how important these micropauses were and what we should be doing within them.  I need to work on these, now, and attempt to show not just ‘gaps’ but ‘gaps’ filled with kime.

If I take the Terminator version – the Evil Swordsman – and inject him with kime it doesn’t just open up endless avenues for action it also opens up the possibility of the swordsman sparing the victim.  It just remains to find a balance between kime and instinct…..   

The Evil Swordsman

In my first years at University I used to play casual games of badminton a few times most weeks with a couple of other students.  Every match was hard fought to the best of our abilities with all my winning matches taking place against Tom, an Irish lad.  This was in stark contrast to my games with Steve, one of the tennis scholarship students (almost all of whom were excellent all-round racquet game players), in which I never won a single match.  Winning, I was quite comfortable with but was not too impressed with the length of the tactical-play rallies it took just to prise just one point from Steve and inevitably came away from those games exhausted, with the feeling “what is it going to take?”  OK, I edged closer to almost scoring double figures towards the end but I never really gave him serious challenge.  Against Tom, though, there were games towards the end in which he never scored a point against me.  

Being a bit thick it took a while for that lesson to sink in: the lesson of needing to face a superior opponent to be able to test your technique/fitness/tactics to their absolute limit and into the breaking zone.  For the sake of walking away with some lesson learned I’ve qualified this principle to exclude the sort of overwhelming superiority (thrashing) for which there is absolutely no point going on the court, ever.



Gently steering this topic over to my love of Jodo, we are taught to try practicing our Jo only against a superior sword-side opponent.  One who will, in Fatherly fashion, punish our Jo technique if it is bad.  By bad I mean “sloppy technique”; “treating the kata as dance”; “pre-empting the sword-wielding opponent”; “leaving oneself open to being cut (attention issues)” or any other number of possible ways to ‘die’.  In kata, despite the sometimes painful lessons, I enjoy practicing with and will hunt out the superior swordsman in a line-up.  But it begs the question how one recognises a good swordsperson?



At the foot of the stairs. 
Whatever your deepest heart's desire, may Heaven watch over you.

This question finally coagulated during Jodo sessions last weekend where it seemed (from my limited perspective) neither rank nor seniority necessarily translated into creating a competent swordsperson.  I watched as various people swapped around and took the bokken against a Jo-wielder.   Some swordspeople I found reasonably compelling but most had few sword skills or worse, had no Makoto – the Japanese word for sincerity.   After all, what is the point in facing a swordsman who not only couldn’t handle a sword but is less than convincing in his wanting to kill you with it?   

On further reflection, I suspect the intention behind using the sword is much more important than the surface skill of how it is used – as evidenced by stories of those inept but determined sociopaths who rob convenience stores or garages armed with cheap, but servicable katana.  Most of these people would not have their Makoto questioned.   Not only are they, using poor expertise and dodgy blades, willing to hack bits off to achieve their ends but they are ready to do so.

The old Japanese Masters had two words to describe the Willing and Ready aspects, attributing them as Kamae or ‘attitudes’:  Kokorogamae and Kigamae.  My understanding of these overlapping concepts is that, in addition to assuming the physical posture(s) in preparation to combat (Jodan no Kamae, Hasso no Kamae, etc.,)  there must be present an indomitable spiritual heart (Kokorogamae) to want combat and the spiritual readiness (Kigamae) to engage in combat.  When all three are meshed together, the swordsman becomes a cutting machine.  At this base, Setsuninken (life-taking sword) level, all the blade wants to do is cut and if thwarted, looks for another opportunity and another and another, without pause and without compassion.

So now, when I’m in a Dojo and pick up a Jo to face a swordsperson, I need to feel my opponent is a skilled, implacable killing machine who from the get-go just wants to wipe my entrails off his sword and look around for his next victim.

We don’t have anyone of that description in any Australian Jodo club I train at.  And this is why my Jodo cannot grow to be its best – whatever that could be.